


The Missing Woman and Other Adventures

by rubyofkukundu



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Case Fic, Friendship/Love, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyofkukundu/pseuds/rubyofkukundu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John comes to a realisation. He thinks he might be in love with Sherlock. God, if only things were that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missing Woman and Other Adventures

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: <http://sherlockbbc.livejournal.com/4515987.html>
> 
> Contains spoilers for _The Reichenbach Fall_.

Two minutes was all it took.  
  
Two minutes and one achingly familiar face and John's life was turned around.  
  
Previously, he'd been John Watson: a doctor on the wrong side of forty, freshly-divorced and with mortgage repayments to keep up on a house he didn't even want. John Watson, who'd thought he'd been learning to live on past the grief and finally making a go of it when it had all broken down again, leaving nothing but a crippled ex-soldier with a smattering of acquaintances and a hole where his life was supposed to be.  
  
Then on the street one day there came a tap on the shoulder and he was suddenly crowded down past the side of a restaurant, extractor fans blaring out heat from the kitchens. Keen eyes glittered in a too-thin face and there was an urgent, rushed request. "John, I need you to help me."  
  
Just like that.  
  
Just like the first time. Why would it be any different now, three years later? John was swept up into a frantic world of bullets and chases; of tackling an armed man to the ground; of sharing triumphant smiles in the cold night air and waiting for Lestrade to come and pick up the pieces.  
  
John has hardly stopped smiling since. He's sold the house, easily, and moved back into Baker Street. Back in with Mrs Hudson fussing and policemen knocking at the door and a wild chaos of books and papers and equipment strewn over the floor. Back with excitement and laughter and all the things that make life worth living. Because everything John hadn't dared to hope for has come true.  
  
His best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is alive.  
  
***  
  
John stands next to Lestrade and watches as Sherlock investigates the bloody footprint by the back door, crouched on the floor, coat spread out around him, magnifying glass in his hands. The sight is so familiar and so foreign at the same time that John's breath nearly catches in his throat.  
  
"It's an exact match for McFarlane's shoes," calls Anderson from the other side of the open-plan kitchen. "He murdered Oldacre for the money. It's an open and shut case. I don't see why you..."  
  
"You're an open and shut case," snarls Sherlock from the floor. "Get out of my investigation."  
  
"Sherlock," warns Lestrade, "this isn't _your_ investigation. It's a police investigation." He turns anyway. "Anderson, just leave us for a moment, will you?"  
  
"You know," Anderson folds his arms and looks down at Sherlock, "I can't believe I actually felt sorry for you when we heard the news. I should have known better. Alive or dead, you still act like a complete..."  
  
"Anderson!" shouts Lestrade. "Out! Now!"  
  
With a snort, Anderson does as he's told.  
  
"So," Lestrade turns back to Sherlock, "what do you reckon?"  
  
Sherlock takes a breath and stands. He looks out into the garden and chuckles, then he shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks further into the room. "Putting up a new garden fence." He spins on his heel and throws a sly smile in John's direction. "Oldacre was doing it himself, of course; builder and fencer, no point in getting someone else in to do the work for him. But," Sherlock turns to point through the back door, "why start to replace only one side of the fence? He'd clearly got enough timber to do it all so why only take up the turf and prepare one side of the garden?"  
  
Lestrade doesn't say anything and John doesn't either. They both know that Sherlock's not looking for an answer; just an excuse to show off. There's a gleam in his eye that shows he's building up to something, whatever that may be.  
  
God, John's missed this.  
  
Sherlock doesn't wait for a reply from either of them. He takes two strides across the kitchen, pulls out his phone and taps something into it. For a few seconds he waits, pacing and staring at the screen, then he laughs; it's a full-throated thing, one that makes him tip his head back in delight. "Oh," Sherlock groans, "people think they're clever, but they're never nearly clever enough." With a smirk, he heads to the kitchen counter, places his phone down and spins it around so that John and Lestrade can see the screen.  
  
What it shows is a list of nearby wireless internet connections. There's the connection for the couple in the house next door, which is clearly labelled, and a number of others, including one with a very strong signal indeed.  
  
"Wait," says John, trying to work it out, "but no-one's living in the house on the other side so..." He frowns at Lestrade. "I thought the forensic team would have unplugged the internet here?"  
  
Lestrade frowns back. "They have. Or, at least, I thought so." And he's striding out into the hallway to go check.  
  
Left alone, Sherlock throws a grin in John's direction before heading over and pushing himself up against the wall that adjoins the empty house next door, cupping his ear to it and closing his eyes.  
  
"It's not turned on." Lestrade strides back in. "There's no internet router turned on in this house. Sherlock..."  
  
"Next door," says Sherlock, "and to think we could have missed him if he hadn't been scared enough to put that footprint down." He opens his eyes.  
  
"You mean," starts Lestrade.  
  
"The house next door is not for sale; it's already been sold. To Oldacre." Sherlock sweeps over to the counter and pockets his phone. "He's been planning this for ages. Bought the house next door, re-installed the for-sale sign and boarded up the windows, then, with the cover of rebuilding the fence, he pulled down the fence between the two houses for easy access." Sherlock grins at Lestrade. "Your murder victim's not dead; he's living snug as anything in the house next door. Why don't you get some of your men and some crowbars, and then we can go have a chat?"  
  
***  
  
Amazing. Just like before. Just like always.  
  
John waits in the front garden of the house next door, primed and ready to go, watching as police officers prise the boards off the door.  
  
Sherlock's buzzing with energy, clearly impatient and not still for a second, pacing the small front garden, his hands twitching by his sides.  
  
Once again, John's hit by just how much he'd missed this. Not just the excitement and the criminals but _Sherlock_ ; this brilliant man who John has the honour to call his best friend. Losing Sherlock was honestly one of the hardest things he's ever done.  
  
God. And hadn't he actually thought? Back then, during those long, sleepless nights. Hadn't it been so bad that he'd wondered if he'd lost more than just a...?  
  
There's shuffling and shouting as the final boards are pulled free from the door. Lestrade's giving orders, but Sherlock's already pushing past him and through into the house.  
  
***  
  
"So," says John, a few hours later as they're on their way home in a taxi, London flowing, dark around them, "want to tell me how you did it? How on earth could you tell that Oldacre had faked his own murder, just from looking at one footprint?"  
  
Sherlock's smiling. "I didn't get it all from the footprint. That was just a signpost." He throws John a glance. "It was the odd one out. There were no bloodstains in any of the other footprints in the kitchen when there clearly should have been; that amount of blood would have left prints for a while. So, what did McFarlane do to make a footprint like that? Hop?"  
  
John sniggers at the image, and Sherlock chuckles along.  
  
"No," Sherlock looks out of the window, "it wasn't McFarlane at all. You saw how muddy that garden was with half the turf up. Anyone who walked out there would leave an imprint, and it wouldn't have been hard for someone as determined as Oldacre to make a cast of one of McFarlane's footprints and smear a little of his own blood on it." Sherlock snorts. "If he'd only stopped to think about how people actually walk, he might have actually been successful."  
  
"So you knew McFarlane was innocent, then," says John.  
  
"Exactly." Sherlock's eyes flash. "The footprint confirmed that he was being framed for Oldacre's murder, and once I knew that, it was only a small leap to work out who was behind it." He grins at John. "Good, wasn't it?"  
  
John grins back, remembering the look on Oldacre's face when Sherlock had swept into the house with a declaration of, "Wireless internet? You could've just used 3G. Honestly!"  
  
"Thinking to check for a wireless signal?" agrees John. "That was definitely good."  
  
"Oh," Sherlock waves a hand, "that was only a stab in the dark. There were a number of ways we could have checked to see if someone was living in the house next door, but that one required the least amount of effort."  
  
John looks over, and the pride that he feels is almost overwhelming. _His_ Sherlock, is back. Not the pathetic fraud that they made him out to be in the papers. No, John's Sherlock is clever and brilliant and _alive_.  
  
"You," says John sincerely, "were fantastic."  
  
Sherlock smiles. "I know."  
  
John huffs in disbelief. "You're also a smug arse."  
  
Sherlock smiles some more. "I know." And they both break down laughing.  
  
***  
  
For the rest of the evening, John's riding the high of a job well done. Sherlock is too, by the looks of him.  
  
It's the first case solved since they've both been back in Baker Street, and John had almost forgotten the exhilaration of it. They order Chinese for dinner and sit with a film playing on the TV in the background, which neither of them pays any attention to.  
  
"Look at you." Mrs Hudson bustles in with an armful of fresh ironing which she sets down on the sofa. "I like it when you solve a case; you always eat so well afterwards. Saves me from worrying."  
  
Sherlock shrugs, manoeuvring his chopsticks with a skill that puts John's fork to shame. "You needn't worry, Mrs Hudson. John does enough of that for me." He grins at John over his noodles.  
  
"Well, I can't help it, Sherlock, when I see you all skin and bones." Mrs Hudson gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder and turns to go. "Have a good evening, boys. I'll bring up your whites tomorrow."  
  
"Goodnight, Mrs Hudson," calls John as she makes her way down the stairs. When she's gone, he turns to Sherlock and says, "I think she's glad, you know. She likes having us both back here."  
  
"It's nice to be back," agrees Sherlock. "Having to pay professionals to do my ironing was getting tiresome."  
  
"That's not nice." John gives him a kick under the table. "Surely Mrs Hudson means more to you than that?"  
  
"Oh, really?" Sherlock looks up at him. "And I suppose it's just coincidence that you let her do your ironing too?"  
  
"Shut up." John goes back to his rice and steadfastly ignores the way Sherlock's grinning at him out of the corner of his eye.  
  
***  
  
Later that night, feeling almost too happy to sleep but determined to give it a go anyway, John heads up to his room and tugs on his pyjamas. He throws back the covers of his bed and is just about to climb inside when a half-formed thought from earlier in the day suddenly catches him off guard. The memory swarms up on him so quickly that he has to sit down.  
  
God. Now he remembers. Waiting in that front garden and thinking...  
  
Back when John had first lost Sherlock, the grief had been so hard that he'd been forced to wonder just what Sherlock was to him. He hadn't allowed himself to follow that train of thought very far though. The notion that he could have lost more than just a friend had been too confusing and too unbearable to contemplate so he'd forced himself to move on with his life and forget about it.  
  
But now it's different. Now Sherlock is _alive_ and downstairs, ready to smile and share a joke and dash headlong, breathless, into something new and exciting. And the events of the day have only gone to show how much John has missed him; how much he thrives in Sherlock's company.  
  
Christ.  
  
John stares at the wall.  
  
He's in love with Sherlock, isn't he?  
  
***  
  
That night, John has a very strange night's sleep. He's oddly at ease with his realisation. Yes, it means that he's not quite as heterosexual as he'd originally thought, but he's not as bothered about that as he probably should be. After all, nothing's changed, really. John realises that he's felt this way for a long while; it's just that now he's finally able to put a name to it.  
  
The next morning, he wakes to find that Sherlock's already gone out, so John showers and breakfasts, then settles down with his laptop to type up the notes from yesterday's case. Makes sense to do it while they're fresh in his mind, after all.  
  
He finds himself thinking back to Sherlock laughing in delight as he checked for wireless networks, and smiles at the memory.  
  
Seriously. It's as plain as day. How did John not realise before?  
  
The only mystery left now is how to tell Sherlock.  
  
Not that Sherlock will like it, of course, but it needs to be done. Not telling Sherlock isn't an option; it's important, it will affect things, and Sherlock deserves to know.  
  
***  
  
After a few hours, John's written up a large part of his notes, which isn't bad going considering how rusty he is at this now. He's just gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on for a well-earned break when Sherlock sweeps into the flat from wherever he's been all day.  
  
"Too slow. Too slow. Why are they growing so slowly?" Sherlock pulls his notebook from his pocket, deposits it on the table, then takes off his coat and scarf and dumps them over the back of a chair.  
  
John's stomach flutters, and he walks over to grin at Sherlock through the kitchen doorway. "Afternoon."  
  
"Hmm?" Sherlock sits down at the table, grabs his own laptop and pulls it towards himself. He lifts the lid and starts typing for a moment before he pauses and leafs through his notebook. "It worked last time." Sherlock gestures at the page. "Did I contaminate them? Has someone tampered with the incubator?" He stops and inspects his sleeves.  
  
"Still working on that cell culture at St Bart's, then?" calls John, heading back into the kitchen to get out the teabags.  
  
"Yes," Sherlock huffs.  
  
John pulls down his mug from the cupboard. "Fancy a cup of tea to calm down?" he asks. "I'm making one for myself anyway."  
  
There's an odd silence from the living room, then suddenly Sherlock calls, "John? No! Don't do that! What are you doing?"  
  
"What?" confused, John heads back over to the doorway to see Sherlock leaning across the table to peer at John's laptop. "Are you talking about the tea?" asks John.  
  
Sherlock scowls, picking up John's laptop and waving it in John's direction. "This, John! Why are you writing up yesterday's case? I thought we agreed that I need to keep a low profile for the next few years!"  
  
The way Sherlock's manhandling the laptop is rather worrying, so John hurries into the living room and grabs it away from Sherlock before it can get dropped. "I _do_ know that, Sherlock," he says. "I'm not such an idiot as you think." He takes a few steps back. "It's not going on my blog, ok? You can relax. I'm just making some notes now so that I'll be able to remember what happened when I'm allowed to make it public in the future."  
  
Sherlock scoffs. "Are you seriously going to keep that up?" He throws himself back down in his chair. "It's been three years now, and I doubt your therapist still cares. So why start blogging again? Isn't it just a hassle?"  
  
"No." John places his laptop on the relative safety of the coffee table. "I want to do it. People need to know the truth, Sherlock. They need to know that you're not a fake; even if it will be a few years before I can actually tell them."  
  
Sherlock sneers. "Let people think what they like. I don't care."  
  
"Well, I _do_ care," protests John. "You've got a talent, Sherlock, and I want the world to appreciate that as much as I do." He's about to say more, but a thought makes him pause.  
  
Why not tell Sherlock now, suggests a part of his brain. It's as good a time as any.  
  
After all, no matter when John tells him, Sherlock won't like it.  
  
John gives a wry smile.  
  
"What is it?" Sherlock frowns, turning back to his own laptop. "Look, John, if you want to continue wasting your time with the blog, then that's fine, as long as you make sure that you..."  
  
"I'm in love with you," says John.  
  
Sherlock pauses mid sentence. His head jerks around to stare at John. "What?"  
  
"I'm... uh." John sits on the coffee table, suddenly feeling a little unsteady. "I'm in love with you, Sherlock."  
  
Sherlock frowns some more, opens his mouth and John holds up a hand to stall the inevitable rejection.  
  
"I don't..." John pauses and takes a breath. "I've been thinking about it and I... I just thought you should know. That's all. I thought you should know."  
  
Sherlock's frown has turned into a scowl. "You're in love with _me_?"  
  
"Yes." John tries not to feel his stomach lurch at Sherlock's expression. "Sherlock, you don't have to... I know you don't..."  
  
Sherlock goes to say something, but he's stopped short by the sound of his mobile phone ringing. He snorts, then screws up his face and answers it. "Yes? What is it?"  
  
John allows himself some strange pride in the fact that Sherlock's voice is a little mangled. The person on the other end of the phone is either a godsend or a bastard, and John can't work out which. He takes a breath that's not nearly as calm as he wants it to be and heads back into the kitchen. The kettle must have finished boiling ages ago.  
  
"I'll be there as soon as I can," comes Sherlock's voice from the living room, apparently hanging up the call.  
  
From the kitchen, John can hear Sherlock stand and what sounds like Sherlock pulling on his coat and scarf. So that's it now, is it? Not even a word; John's just going to be dropped like the inconvenience he is. John focuses on making the tea and tries not to feel miserable at that. After all; he knew Sherlock wasn't going to like it.  
  
The sound of footsteps suggest that Sherlock's heading out. John clutches onto the counter and takes a deep breath.  
  
But the footsteps don't head down the stairs. Instead, they stop in the doorway, and Sherlock huffs impatiently. "John, are you coming? Get your coat. Lestrade's already waiting for us."  
  
***  
  
The cab ride down to Kennington is an awkward one. Sherlock spends the entirety of the journey staring out of the window, and John finds himself too busy battling a confusing mixture of relief and frustration to start a conversation.  
  
It's encouraging that Sherlock hasn't turfed John out of his life yet. Either that means that Sherlock's waiting until this new case is over before he does it, or that he's not going to do it at all.  
  
John hopes to God it's the latter. If Sherlock's willing to pretend that nothing's happened, then John's equally willing to do the same; it would be welcome, in fact, to know that nothing has to change between them.  
  
"Jesus, you two look terrible," greets Lestrade once they arrive and climb out of the taxi onto a street full of squat terraced houses and policemen in uniform. "Been arguing again?"  
  
Sherlock looks up at the house in front of him. "Is this where she was last seen?" he asks, and brushes past Lestrade and into the house without waiting for an answer.  
  
"Er, yeah," says Lestrade, following after him. He turns and explains the situation to John as they go. "Missing person. Carrie Hackett. Hasn't been seen by anyone since last night. She told her husband she was going to the gym, then nothing."  
  
Sherlock stops in the hallway. "Only gone for one night?" He frowns at Lestrade. "That's not long to be missing."  
  
"No," Lestrade sticks his hands in his pockets and meets Sherlock's gaze, "but this isn't usual for her at all. She said she'd be back in time to put their son to bed and there was nothing to suggest that she wouldn't be. We do like to actually find people who've gone missing, Sherlock. That means starting early when we've still got a good chance."  
  
Sherlock snorts and steps up to the bottom of the stairs. "Am I free to inspect the whole house?"  
  
"You are," says Lestrade, "but try to remember to have a bit of tact, ok? There's a kid who's missing his mother involved here."  
  
"Yes. Fine." Sherlock pockets his scarf, ready to go up the stairs, but he's stopped by a man who walks out of the living room carrying a toddler; presumably this is the husband.  
  
"Are you...?" The husband flicks a glance at Lestrade then looks to Sherlock.  
  
"No. No. Not now." Sherlock holds up a hand as he starts up the stairs. "Don't interrupt me. I'll have time to question you later."  
  
John follows at a distance and throws the husband a sympathetic smile as he goes past. "We'll do what we can."  
  
"Er, thanks," says the husband after him.  
  
Sherlock's already disappeared into the master bedroom. John heads inside and watches as Sherlock opens drawers and wardrobes and picks his way through their contents, looking some things over, then wrinkling his nose and muttering about others. Once done, Sherlock brushes past John and heads out onto the landing, treating the rest of the rooms on the first floor in much the same way.  
  
Finally, after finishing in the bathroom, Sherlock straightens and makes his way back downstairs.  
  
He stops in the hall next and rifles through the coats and shoes along one wall, ignoring the husband who's come to watch, still holding his son.  
  
Abruptly, Sherlock stands and points to a space on the carpet beside a pair of sandals. "What goes there?"  
  
The husband frowns. "What?"  
  
Sherlock sighs. "Shoes." He points at the space. "Clearly a pair lives there but they're not there now. What are they?"  
  
The husband thinks about it. "I don't know," he says after a while. "I... She was wearing her trainers when she left, so that's probably..."  
  
Sherlock huffs and walks through into the living room.  
  
Once again, he goes through everything, inspecting objects and putting them back, starting with the kitchen, then moving on into the cupboards and spaces in the living room.  
  
Beside the sofa, he bends down and pulls up a handbag. Setting it down on the arm of the sofa, he unzips it. "What bag did she take with her to the gym?" Sherlock glances at the husband. "Do you remember?"  
  
"Er," the husband purses his lips, "I'm pretty sure it was her rucksack; that's what she normally takes when she goes."  
  
Sherlock hums and pokes his way through the handbag. "And is this the bag she normally uses when she's not at the gym?"  
  
"Yes," agrees the husband, watching Sherlock's hands carefully. "She doesn't use any others regularly."  
  
Sherlock pulls out an umbrella, inspects it, then puts it back in the handbag. He rummages deeper. "No purse. Obvious. Oyster card?" He looks up and turns to the husband. "How far away is the gym from here?"  
  
The husband shrugs. "Just five minutes' walk down the road."  
  
Sherlock frowns. "Does your wife have an Oyster card? I'm assuming she takes public transport to work, given the state of your car outside." He looks around the room. "Would her Oyster card be anywhere else in the house?"  
  
The husband is frowning. "No. She normally keeps it in there."  
  
"Needed to travel," Sherlock mutters to himself. He tosses the handbag down onto the sofa cushions and walks over to the husband, holding out a hand. "We need to talk. Sherlock Holmes, pleased to meet you."  
  
"Er, right." The husband hefts his son to one arm and shakes Sherlock's hand. "Jamie Hackett. I'm Carrie's husban..."  
  
"Yes, I know." Sherlock steeples his fingers and takes a few steps towards the window. "Tell me what happened when she left." He throws Jamie a glance. " _Exactly_. I want exact details."  
  
"Ok." Jamie puts his son down and ushers him into the arms of a waiting police officer. "Well." He scratches a hand through his hair. "Carrie got back from work at the usual time and picked Archie up from the child-minder's." Across the room, Sherlock sighs. Jamie looks at him for a moment, then elaborates, "At four-thirty. When I got home, er, at six, that evening, Carrie said that she was tired, so she went upstairs for a lie-down for half an hour. I gave Archie his dinner, and then Carrie came down in her gym clothes with her rucksack and said she was going to the gym." Jamie rubs at his elbow. "She said she'd be back in time to put Archie to bed, which is normally at eight. I was still helping Archie with his dinner, so I didn't see her get ready to go, but I think she packed her rucksack, put on her shoes and went."  
  
"Was she acting strangely?" asks Sherlock.  
  
"Not particularly," replies Jamie. "She often has a nap when I get home from work and..."  
  
"How often does she go to the gym?" Sherlock paces back into the centre of the room, touching his fingers to his lips.  
  
"I don't know." Jamie shrugs. "Every other week? She's not regular, but she goes enough to make the membership worthwhile."  
  
Sherlock hums. "Do you ever go to the gym together?"  
  
Jamie gives a weak smile and pats his stomach. "Do I look like I go to the gym?"  
  
"No." Sherlock takes two steps then turns on his heel. "Right." He points to a laptop case that's sitting on the dining table. "I'll need to take your laptop away with me so I can check your wife's emails. I'd ask for her phone as well, but I haven't seen it around so I assume that she took it with her."  
  
"Hold on." Lestrade steps in suddenly, putting himself between Sherlock and the dining table. "You can't just take someone's laptop, Sherlock. It needs to go the team in the lab so they can..."  
  
"Oh, come on." Sherlock rolls his eyes and throws a sneer in Lestrade's direction. "You're going to bring police procedure in on it _now_? You've already let me look over the whole house!"  
  
"That's different to letting you have important pieces of evidence in your custody, Sherlock." Lestrade shoves his hands in his pockets. "Our forensic team will be able to..."  
  
"Oh, seriously," Sherlock just talks right over the top of him. "You won't have a clue what's going on. You'll all be looking for a missing person, when really we need to be looking for a woman who's off having an affair!"  
  
John sucks in a breath at that, and it seems as if everyone else does the same because the room suddenly goes very quiet. Jamie's cheeks have flushed red.  
  
"Did it not even cross your minds?" asks Sherlock, incredulous. "I wish I could say I was surprised, but then, it's what I've come to expect from you lot by now." He sighs and gestures at the room around them. "She works full time, with a young child and a marriage that's waning. Par for the course, really." He throws John and Lestrade a look. "John? Lestrade? You've both been married. How long does it normally take before it all breaks down?"  
  
And John wasn't expecting that jibe at all. He averts his gaze, throat burning.  
  
"Sherlock," counters Lestrade, clearly angry, "you can't just..."  
  
"Oh, it's obvious," spits Sherlock. He waves a hand at the handbag on the sofa. "Carrie Hackett goes to the gym frequently but not regularly enough for it to be called a habit, and certainly not with her husband. Sounds like she does it on a whim then, but this time was after she'd had a chance to be on her own upstairs, so possibly making a phone call, although we can't say for certain. What we do know is that she left at dinner time and that she took her purse, her phone, her Oyster card and, if we're going by the empty space left in the hallway, a pair of stiletto heels with her; probably had a further change of clothes in her rucksack too."  
  
"Come on," says Lestrade, "we don't know they were stiletto heels, and maybe she took her Oyster card just in case she needed it."  
  
Sherlock snorts. "The imprints in the carpet, _clearly_ from stiletto heels, would beg to differ." He steps up to the sofa and opens the handbag. "But even so, I think this should clear up any further doubts." He dips his hand inside and pulls out something very small and very gold. Sherlock looks to Jamie. "Any reason why your wife would want to stuff her wedding ring into the bottom of her handbag before she went out to the gym?"  
  
"She..." starts Jamie.  
  
"I think we can say that she's having an affair with some certainty, wouldn't you?" Sherlock smirks. "The question is, why did she choose last night as the one night she wouldn't come back?" He gives Lestrade a meaningful look. "The laptop, please."  
  
Lestrade scowls in return. With a resigned sigh, he steps away from the table. "Fine."  
  
Triumphant, Sherlock sweeps over to the dining table and picks up the laptop case. He throws John an elated, self-congratulatory grin.  
  
And John has no idea what to make of that.  
  
"I'm giving you one day," warns Lestrade. "If you don't have anything by then, I'm going to put forensics on it."  
  
"Don't worry." Sherlock gives Lestrade a tight, cruel smile. "In this, as with everything else, I'm sure they'll be disappointed."  
  
***  
  
In the taxi ride home, Sherlock drums his fingers on the laptop case while staring out of the window. It's painfully obvious that he can't wait to get into the thing. If the cab had wifi, John's pretty sure that Sherlock would have it open and running already.  
  
Sherlock sighs, then turns to John. It almost looks like he's going to throw John another one of those triumphant grins, but it seems to stall on his lips when he notices John's expression. Sherlock drums his fingers faster and turns to stare out of the window again.  
  
To be honest, John would be happy with another silent cab ride, but he can't let this one go without a fight.  
  
"That wasn't good, Sherlock," he says.  
  
"Oh, of course not," says Sherlock, sounding exasperated, looking out at the cars as they pass. "It never is."  
  
"Lestrade did actually ask you to use some tact this time," says John.  
  
Sherlock sighs again.  
  
John clenches his jaw. "Even you must realise that that was not a nice way to let someone know their wife is having an affair."  
  
Sherlock turns to him. "Oh, and there is a nice way, is there?" He sneers. "Should I have done it with a bouquet of flowers?"  
  
"No." John closes his eyes for a second and takes a breath. When he opens them, Sherlock's looking away again. Good. "You just didn't have to shout it in front of a room full of people," says John, "that's all."  
  
Sherlock shrugs. "A child of that age is hardly going to understand the concepts of monogamy and extra-marital affairs."  
  
"It's not..." John runs a hand over his forehead. "I'm not talking about their kid, Sherlock. There are some things that it's best to tell people in private, not in front of a load of strangers."  
  
Sherlock turns to him with a frown. "But I was telling him that there's a very high probability his wife is still alive. I would have thought that anyone would have been happy at the news." His eyes meet Johns, and when John frowns back, Sherlock huffs and turns away again. "I don't understand."  
  
"No," mutters John, "you never do."  
  
***  
  
When they get home, Sherlock sets down the laptop on the dining table and boots it up straight away.  
  
John stands in the living room for a moment, awkward, not really sure what role he's allowed to take any more. Still, things have been pretty normal up to this point; maybe he should assume that they're not going to change that much after all.  
  
He turns to Sherlock. "Is there anything..." He clears his throat. "Can I help at all?"  
  
The laptop plays a tune as it starts up. "Coffee," says Sherlock, folding his hands together and watching the screen over the top of them.  
  
"Right," says John. He waits, but Sherlock doesn't say anything else. "Right." And John heads into the kitchen to turn the kettle on.  
  
He's just in the process of trying to find a clean teaspoon when Sherlock gives out an amused chuckle.  
  
"Oh, I love a password," comes Sherlock's voice from the living room, "if only people would put more thought into them." There follows the sound of some typing. "John," calls Sherlock into the kitchen, "what was the name of their son? It was something ridiculous."  
  
"Archie," calls out John  
  
"Ah. Of course." There's more typing and Sherlock laughs again. "Honestly, how do people think their accounts are secure if they're all so obvious? Oh, and her work email has the same password too. Good Lord."  
  
By the time John's entered the living room with two cups of coffee, it seems like Sherlock's managed to get into whatever it is he wants access to, because he's sat there reading the screen, attention rapt.  
  
John sets Sherlock's mug on the table. "Find anything?"  
  
"Mmm," says Sherlock, clearly too absorbed to even acknowledge the question.  
  
With a sigh, John leaves him to it and heads over to the sofa. He puts down his coffee and picks up his own laptop from where it he'd left it earlier. If he can't help with the investigation, then he may as well finish typing up those case notes from before, because the last thing he wants to do is to think about what's going to happen to his part in Sherlock's life once the case is over.  
  
An hour and a half passes. Sherlock has been quiet the whole time, occasionally scrolling and clicking, and occasionally jotting something down on the notepad beside him. This continues for a few more minutes until, suddenly, Sherlock sits back, his face pale.  
  
"I've miscalculated," he says, staring at the wall in front of him. "I've seen this before."  
  
John looks up. "What do you mean?"  
  
Sherlock doesn't reply. Instead, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials. "Lestrade?" he says. "I want you to get a team out to dredge the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge. I think we're going to find Carrie Hackett's body in the river."  
  
***  
  
The sky is dark as they travel back down to Lambeth in a taxi, street lights casting odd shadows on Sherlock's face, amplifying the set of his mouth. He looks concerned.  
  
John wants to ask exactly what's going on, and how an affair one minute can turn into a body in the river the next, but Sherlock seems distracted enough that John's reluctant to bother him. Eventually, though, John's curiosity wins out. He clears his throat. "So," he says. "You think we'll find Carrie Hackett's body in the river?"  
  
Sherlock is silent, watching a cafe as they drive past. After a moment, he says, "John, how did you know?"  
  
John frowns at him, confused. "How did I know about... the river? But that's what I'm asking you."  
  
"No." Sherlock glances at him, briefly. "How did you know? About..." He waves a hand and clears his throat. "That you're in love with me."  
  
"Oh." Suddenly, John can feel his cheeks burning. He turns to the window to compose himself. "Is this for the...?" He scratches at his wrist. "You said Carrie Hackett was having an affair?"  
  
"It would help me to know."  
  
John turns back to see Sherlock watching him with a serious expression. The lack of contempt is heartening, although that may just be because Sherlock's focussed on the case at the moment.  
  
"Right." John looks at the floor. "I haven't really got to grips with it myself, to be honest," he admits.  
  
Sherlock is silent, waiting for him to continue.  
  
John tries not to flush harder and fails. He takes a breath and forces himself to look up. "I know you don't understand these things, Sherlock, but being in love is like..." He waves a hand. "You think about them, a lot. You're happy to be with them. Sometimes it can make you feel like there's a lightness in your chest, butterflies in your stomach."  
  
"Adrenaline response," provides Sherlock.  
  
"Yes," agrees John, "I suppose you would understand that part." He turns to the window as they cross Oxford Street and its brightly lit shops. "But it's not just a physical thing, Sherlock. It's emotional, important. It can feel as if the whole world revolves around this other person; what they do, how they react to you." He coughs and tries to force himself to meet Sherlock's gaze. "You get selfish. You can get swept up in it."  
  
Sherlock raises his chin and his voice sticks slightly when he says, "You've become swept up in me."  
  
"I..." John pauses and licks his lips. He feels as red as a beetroot. "This is still very new to me, Sherlock. I don't..." He shakes his head. "I enjoy your company, more than anything, and I... Losing you was very hard for me. I don't ever want to have to go through that again."  
  
Sherlock stares at him for a moment, and it feels as if John's heart is going to beat right out of his chest. John rubs his palms on his knees. "So," he says, "does that help with the... whatever's going on with this case?" He swallows and tries to steer the conversation onto something less agonising. "Are you going to tell me why we're looking for a body in the river now?"  
  
It's a few moments more before Sherlock turns away. "Lambeth," he says. "Missing person. Woman in her mid-twenties. Young mother. I should have recognised it as soon as I knew she'd gone missing." He wrinkles his nose and sighs. "Five years ago, there was a murder in Stockwell that bore a striking resemblance to the disappearance of Carrie Hackett. The year before that, another one, in Elephant and Castle. The victims: Helen Whitman and Shamila Hussain. Both young mothers. Both having an affair. Both found dead in the Thames."  
  
"Oh," says John, catching on. "You mean this is a..."  
  
"Serial killing," says Sherlock. "Yes." He looks at John. "The murderer was never found in either of the two previous cases. I was asked to look into it a couple of years afterwards, but I only had the case files to work with and there wasn't nearly enough information to go on. The killer was too meticulous; too clean. Doubtless I would have been able to find something if I'd been able to inspect the bodies myself, but the forensic teams found nothing." He huffs out a breath. "After that, the only thing to do was to wait until the killer struck again."  
  
"Like now," says John.  
  
"Mmm." Sherlock looks out of the window and the whites of his eyes flicker in the lights of a passing van. "We can't be certain until we find a body, of course, but the hallmarks are all there. They flirt via email. It's obvious that they're having sex, but the emails never specify where; presumably they made their appointments over the phone. She complains about her failing marriage and he asks about her son. The times when they meet are irregular, but increase in frequency as time goes on. He makes more and more allusions to her motherhood; fetishising it, dwelling on it. Then he suggests that they go somewhere different for a change and suddenly she goes missing." Sherlock turns back to John. "The previous two times, the victims were found in the river, not too far from where they lived."  
  
John takes a breath and lets it out slowly. "Oh. God."  
  
Sherlock gives John an insincere smile. "There's no guarantee that we'll find Carrie Hackett near Vauxhall Bridge, but it's a reasonable place to start."  
  
***  
  
When they arrive at Vauxhall, the tide's out, exposing a bed of shingle on either side of the river. Lestrade's down there with his team, watching them work with a grim expression.  
  
He turns as John and Sherlock approach. Sherlock gives him a nod.  
  
"What's all this about, then?" asks Lestrade. He glances over to the boat on the water. "I thought you said we were dealing with a woman who was having an affair?"  
  
"She was." Sherlock pulls on his leather gloves and steps up to the water's edge, looking out across the river. "And then, if this has gone the same way as the other two, she was killed."  
  
"The other two?" Lestrade's frowning. "Ok. Tell me what you found on her laptop."  
  
Sherlock turns back to him and explains everything as he had done to John in the taxi. By the time Sherlock's finished, Lestrade looks even more grim than he did before. "So you're saying that you think whoever murdered those two also got to Carrie Hackett?"  
  
"Yes." Sherlock sniffs and glances up at the bridge above them. "That was an error on my part. I should have considered it as soon as I knew she was missing."  
  
Lestrade snorts. "Well, you can't be infallible all the time."  
  
Sherlock looks over at the boat on the river, nose wrinkling. "Found anything yet?"  
  
Lestrade sucks on his teeth. "No," he says. "Not yet."  
  
***  
  
It turns out that dredging a river can take a long time. Sherlock had said that the body might not be found in Vauxhall and he was right, so they slowly start to make their way downstream. A large portion of the river is within easy distance of Carrie Hackett's house, which means there's still a long way to go before they cover all of it.  
  
John bunches his hands up under his armpits and tries to ignore the cold; chances are they'll be here for a few hours yet.  
  
Sherlock has mostly been quiet, watching the boat work and occasionally getting Lestrade to radio across instructions. Now, though, Lestrade has gone up to make a call from his car, leaving John and Sherlock alone, down on the shingle bed.  
  
John stares across at the Houses of Parliament. He imagines that this could be a pretty good view, with the buildings all lit up as they are. If only they were here in nicer, and warmer, circumstances.  
  
Morosely, he wonders how much longer they'll have to wait.  
  
"John," says Sherlock beside him, and John looks up with a start; this is the first Sherlock's said in a while.  
  
Sherlock looks down at John, his face pale in the dark. "Tell me about the other side of things."  
  
The sentence is so cryptic that John has no idea what to make of it. "The other side...?"  
  
"What we were discussing in the taxi," clarifies Sherlock. "You explained the emotional side of things but not the physical side."  
  
John looks at him.  
  
"I'm talking about sex," says Sherlock.  
  
Oh God. And just when John had thought the evening couldn't get worse. Is Sherlock really...? John's not seriously going to have to explain the birds and the bees to Sherlock for the first time, is he?  
  
"I know how sex works," says Sherlock, apparently reading John's thoughts. "Theoretically." He looks at John. "You say you're in love with me so I'm assuming you want to have sex with me."  
  
Jesus Christ. John wonders if it would be acceptable to go running into the river and never return. The fact that Sherlock treats everything to do with relationships with disgust makes it all the worse; there's no way John can come out of this conversation looking good.  
  
"You trying to understand all the aspects of Carrie Hackett's affair, then?" asks John, stalling for time.  
  
"John," says Sherlock impatiently.  
  
"Right." John coughs. He takes a breath and looks out over the river, pebbles crunching under his feet as he shifts his weight. "Sex goes along with love, you know, Sherlock; with relationships." He's glad it's dark enough that Sherlock's not able to see his face properly. "When you love someone, you want to get closer to them. Intimate. You want to touch them, have sex with them."  
  
"The inference being that you want to have sex with me," says Sherlock.  
  
"Look! Don't..." John presses his lips together and inhales through his nose. "I haven't actually given it much thought, you know. I only realised how I felt about you last night so I haven't..." He forces himself to bite the bullet. "I suppose so," he says, turning to look up at Sherlock. "I suppose I do want to have sex with you."  
  
Sherlock opens his mouth to say something.  
  
"Wait," says John. "Hold on. You don't have to..." He huffs. "I'm not expecting anything, Sherlock; you realise? Just because I've told you how I feel, it doesn't mean that you're obliged to do anything." John looks Sherlock in the eye. "You know I'm happy to stay friends, right? If you prefer, we can forget this ever happened. I'm fine with just staying friends."  
  
Sherlock watches him, and before he can say anything, Lestrade's walking back towards them.  
  
"Find anything while I was gone?" calls Lestrade, shoving his hands in his pockets.  
  
"Nothing," says Sherlock, and turns back to look out over the river.  
  
***  
  
It takes them until the early hours of the morning, but they finally find Carrie Hackett's body somewhere near Waterloo Bridge, skin pale as they drag her from the water.  
  
Sherlock climbs aboard the boat and looks down at the body. He sniffs. "That's her."  
  
"Jesus," says John, as he and Lestrade follow Sherlock on-board. The poor woman can't have been dead for more than a day; her skin is blotchy and grey, and bruised in some places, but the body's not yet swollen. Stab wounds pepper her torso, and it seems as if there was method in there somewhere, because the wounds are clustered on the right side of her chest and torso, leaving the left side and her abdomen almost clear. John grimaces. Perhaps the murderer was going for her liver or for her lungs; certainly he will have got them. But it seems unlikely that she died this way; not if the large, jagged slash across her throat is anything to go by.  
  
Sherlock crouches down beside her, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and taking out his magnifying glass. "Light!" he growls over his shoulder. "I need more light!"  
  
One of the police officers passes John a large torch. John turns it on and aims the light at the body, trying to angle it to avoid Sherlock's shadow from getting in the way.  
  
The woman is wearing jeans and a flimsy-looking top. On her feet are a pair of stiletto shoes, which are presumably the ones Sherlock found missing in her home. Her skin shines sickeningly in the torchlight as Sherlock moves around her, the edges of her wounds flashing pale and frayed, washed clean with the current.  
  
"I'm not sure the river will have left us much to go on," says John.  
  
"No." Sherlock inspects her hair, her neck, her nails. He shuts his magnifying glass and moves down the body, reaching a hand into one of her trouser pockets and pulling out an Oyster card and a bunch of keys. Then he leans over and reaches into the pocket on her other side, this time coming back with a mobile phone.  
  
It's a model that's a couple of years old, black, entirely waterlogged, and with a screen smashed to pieces.  
  
Sherlock turns it over in his hands then passes it to Lestrade. "There might be something on that, although from the looks of it, he's done a good job of rendering it useless." Sherlock gives Lestrade a tight smile. "He's thorough."  
  
It takes fifteen more minutes for Sherlock to inspect the rest of the body. Then he stands, looking faintly pleased with himself.  
  
"So," says Lestrade, "what can you tell us?"  
  
"Not much," says Sherlock, looking down at the body. "As John says, the river has washed most of the evidence away, and going from the previous cases, our murderer will have been careful enough to not leave us with much in the first place. Still," Sherlock gestures at her, "you should run DNA tests to see if he's left anything behind. We shouldn't rule it out until we know for certain."  
  
Lestrade nods. "Ok."  
  
"Other than that," Sherlock paces around the body, "I can tell you that he's five foot five, left-handed and that they probably drove here in his car."  
  
John and Lestrade look at him.  
  
"Look," says Sherlock, bending down and peeling the woman's top down to expose her shoulder. "We know that she took a rucksack with her and we know that it was fairly full; if she'd worn it for any length of time, it would have chafed and left a mark. As there are no marks here at all, we can assume that she didn't wear the rucksack for long enough to travel anywhere, so it's likely that the murderer met her near her house." He sniffs. "It would make sense for her to change out of her gym clothes before or soon after she met him, seeing as that was the point of her taking a change of clothes in the first place. So, she changed her outfit somewhere near her house and since then, either dead or alive, has travelled from Kennington to here." Sherlock stands and makes his way to her feet. He crouches down and pulls aside one of the straps from her shoe. "See? Shoes like these? They would have left marks if she'd walked any sort of distance. No marks means that she didn't walk very far at all. Therefore, she will have needed some form of transport to get to the river." Sherlock stands. "It makes most sense for the murderer to have had a car, especially if he had to move a body. He wouldn't risk taking a taxi or a bus, even if they did come here while she was alive; too many witnesses and he's too clever for that." Sherlock turns and holds the Oyster card out to Lestrade. "May as well check this though. Find out if she did use any public transport last night and where she might have travelled to."  
  
"Right." Lestrade takes the Oyster card. "And his height?"  
  
Sherlock flashes him a grin. "Oh, well, that part's easy." He bends down and brushes the woman's hair back from her forehead, revealing a nasty looking bruise. "She's been hit on the head. Bruises on her arms too; looks like there was a struggle between them." Sherlock runs a finger around the bruise on her forehead and taps it. "The size of this bruise and its location strongly suggest that the attacker was slightly shorter than the victim, but not by much, which puts him at somewhere around five foot five."  
  
Fantastic, as always. John must have made a noise because Sherlock throws him a brief smile.  
  
"Look at her other wounds." Sherlock stands and gestures at her torso. "More stab wounds on the right side of her body than the left, and the gash on her neck, clearly made from her left side to her right. I'd be very surprised if this killer wasn't left-handed." He takes a step back and looks out across to the bank. "Lestrade, you should check CCTV near the river; see if you can see them arrive in the car. I'll send you the details for her email account too, so you can check IP addresses; I'm assuming he's clever enough not to leave us a trail that way, but you never know."  
  
He pulls off the latex gloves and tosses them to one side, already making his way off the boat. "I'll need access to the case files for the murders of Helen Whitman and Shamila Hussain so I can compare them to what we've found here." Sherlock turns to smile at John and Lestrade. "Three incidents by the same person? That should give us enough data to go on."

***

They stop off at Scotland Yard on the way home to get the files on the previous two murders. It's 3am before they're heading home in a taxi.  
  
Sherlock scoffs as he flips through one of the files. "He kills three women and none of them suspect him beforehand. I'm sure the signs were there if they knew to look for them." Sherlock snorts, turning a page. "But that's how he works. He starts an affair with them and lets them be blinded by their own emotions." Sherlock screws up his face in disgust. "Love is dangerous. At best it's a hindrance; it stops people from thinking properly."  
  
John's stomach twists. Since they'd found the body, he'd almost managed to forget what a precarious situation he's in, but Sherlock obviously hasn't. At the moment, John's too weary to be indignant about it; he's just sad. With a heavy heart, he wonders just how much Sherlock despises him.  
  
But Sherlock doesn't say any more on the subject. Instead, he passes John one of the files. "John, I need you to check through this while I cover the other one. See if there's anything in there that can tell us something about the murderer."  
  
When John doesn't reply, Sherlock huffs and looks at him. "Are you listening?"  
  
John grits his teeth. "Yes." The file is hefty enough that he has to rest it on his knees. He opens the cover. "Look through the file to research the murderer. Got it."  
  
"Good." Sherlock stares at him for a moment, then sits back and busies himself with his own file.  
  
***  
  
When they get home, Sherlock rushes over and dumps his file in front of the victim's laptop. He sits down and opens them both up, shrugging off his coat onto the back of the chair in the process.  
  
John puts his own file on the coffee table and stifles a yawn. Whatever Sherlock may have said in the taxi, he seems happy enough to let John help with the case for now. John determines to make the best of it. "Do you want another coffee?" he asks Sherlock. "Because I need another coffee."  
  
Sherlock doesn't say anything to that, apparently too busy going through his file to reply. John sighs and goes to turn the kettle on anyway.  
  
Once the coffee is made, John puts a cup down in front of Sherlock and takes his own, along with his file, to an armchair. He rests the file in his lap and looks at it. Jesus, it's a massive thing. John feels far too tired to tackle something of this size at this time in the morning. Still, it beats sitting around feeling sorry for himself any day. Taking a desperate sip of coffee, even though it's hot enough to burn his tongue, John turns to the first page.  
  
***  
  
What feels like a while later, John's woken by the sound of Sherlock laughing. The file that was in his lap has moved at some point and is now spread out on the coffee table with the other file and the victim's laptop. Sherlock laughs so loudly that he rocks back in the sofa with it.  
  
"What an error!" crows Sherlock. "A big mistake like that but he'd already gone far enough that he had to go through with it! Oh, this is _perfect_."  
  
"What?" asks John, finding that he's smiling along with Sherlock against his best efforts. "What is it?"  
  
Sherlock grins at him. "The key to finding our man. Come and take a look."  
  
So John stands, ignoring the way his neck is complaining, and walks over to sit beside Sherlock on the sofa.  
  
"Here." Sherlock, clearly excited, points to the photographs of the previous two victims on the coffee table. "What do you see?"  
  
John leans forward to look at them. Both bodies seem very similar to the one they found a few hours ago; the torsos are peppered with stab wounds and both have had their throats slit. "They were killed in the same way as Carrie Hackett," says John.  
  
Sherlock gives an exasperated sigh. "Is that it?"  
  
John frowns, and looks harder at the photos. "Yup," he says after a moment. "That's it." He turns to Sherlock. "Go on, then. What is it?"  
  
"Your ability to miss the obvious is astounding." Sherlock leans forwards and points to the slash marks across both necks. "See these? The wounds are very clean; they're made by someone who was a deft hand with a knife. But the corpse we saw today?"  
  
John studies the photos. "The cut on Carrie Hackett's neck was jagged." He looks at Sherlock. "The person who did it wasn't very good at it."  
  
"Perfect, John. Yes!" Sherlock grins at him. "So, what can we deduce from that?"  
  
"Oh," says John, realisation dawning. "It was done by a different person."  
  
"No! No! No! Don't be ridiculous, John! Of course it wasn't done by a different person! The cases are all too similar for that." Sherlock huffs and waves a hand at the photos. "Don't you see? Look at the stab wounds. Look at their distribution!"  
  
Frowning, John looks back at the photos. "I..."  
  
Sherlock points. "Look here. On both bodies there are clearly more stab wounds on the left side of the body than on the right. Therefore the attacker was right-handed. But what did we find on Carrie Hackett's body? Her attacker had used his _left_ hand."  
  
"But," starts John, "surely that means it was a different per..."  
  
Sherlock sighs. "John, try to _think_ for once. Do you remember what I said? Carrie Hackett had bruises on her arms and that large bruise on her forehead. There'd been a struggle between them. And we know that she was slightly taller than her attacker, which may have given her an advantage over the other two victims." He looks at John. "Suddenly, we find the murderer using a different hand to attack the victim, and going by the rough way he hacked at her throat, a hand that he wasn't used to using. What does this mean?"  
  
John stares at him, wide eyed. "She'd managed to hurt his good hand."  
  
Sherlock gives him a manic grin, then jumps up. He grabs up his phone from the table and types something at an alarming speed, pacing across the floor. "I'll ask Lestrade to ring round the hospitals and doctors' surgeries in Lambeth and the surrounding boroughs. We need a list of everyone who came in yesterday with any injury to their right arm. If he was hurt enough that he couldn't use his right hand at all, he would have needed to have it treated fairly urgently." Sherlock finishes typing and pockets his phone with a triumphant air. "Hopefully it won't take him too long to put the list together. But until then, we'll just have to wait."  
  
John thinks back warily to his time at the surgery. "That search is going to bring up a lot of results," he warns.  
  
Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. "We've got three cases' worth of information here. That should be enough to whittle our list down. Now," he perches himself on the arm of one of the armchairs and looks across at John. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
John frowns. "What?"  
  
"We have some free time." Sherlock raises his eyebrows. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
That still doesn't make any sense. John frowns harder. "I don't..."  
  
Sherlock huffs and starts pacing again. "Given our earlier conversations, John, I think you've made it quite clear that you would like to instigate a romantic relationship with me. So," he turns to John, "what do you want me to do?"  
  
"I..." John sits up. "What?" He returns Sherlock's gaze, heart suddenly racing. "No. I didn't mean... You don't have to. I said..." He runs a hand through his hair, mouth dry. "I said I was fine with us staying friends, Sherlock. You're not obliged to do anything."  
  
"Well, of course I'm not obliged to do anything." Sherlock gives an incredulous snort and walks over to John. "Although I do doubt your integrity when you say you'd rather remain friends."  
  
John sputters, but Sherlock just talks straight over the top of him.  
  
"Do you think, John," Sherlock sits on the coffee table to look John in the eye, "that I would happily go along with _romance_ merely so as not to hurt your feelings?"  
  
"What?" John's stomach flips without warning. He sits back. "But... Wait. Weren't you saying earlier that relationships were dangerous? You said love was a hindrance; I remember you saying it."  
  
"Of course it's a hindrance." Sherlock sneers. "It is unnecessary and disruptive and a breeding ground for stupidity."  
  
"Ok..." John purses his lips, his heart stuttering in confusion.  
  
Sherlock huffs and gestures at John. "Well, your reaction proves my point nicely, don't you think?" When John doesn't reply, Sherlock scoffs. "John, you know what romance and relationships and all those," he makes a disgusted face, " _emotions_ do to my work. Knowing all that, do you really think I'd go along with it if I had any other choice?"  
  
John stares at him. "You..."  
  
"Emotions are unnecessary and disruptive and," Sherlock sighs, "apparently, extremely difficult to get rid of once they've taken root." He snorts. "I _have_ tried."  
  
"You..." John's heart is thrumming in his chest. He shifts awkwardly in his seat. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"  
  
Sherlock's leans his elbows on his knees and his expression loses some of its sharpness. "John, what you were saying earlier, with the..." He looks down and taps his foot on the floor. "Selfishness. Adrenaline response. Emotional response. I recognised it. I..." Sherlock purses his lips for a second. "I watched you grieve for me, John, and it was..." He clears his throat, looking slightly pained. "I didn't enjoy it."  
  
John tries to give a reassuring smile, but his lips are trembling. He takes a breath and reaches across to put a hand over Sherlock's. "I think," says John. He looks Sherlock in the eye. "I think we might be on the same page with this."  
  
Sherlock's lips thin. He looks down and turns his hand over so that their palms rest together. "I think so too," he says. "Even if I wish we weren't."  
  
John snorts a laugh, smiling without meaning to. "Only you, Sherlock, could be unhappy about something like this."  
  
Sherlock pouts. "Good job you find it endearing, then." He breathes out and disentangles their hands. "So," he says, looking at John, "what do you want me to do?"  
  
John's grinning now. "That's not how these things work, Sherlock. You do realise that? It's not just you taking orders from me all the time."  
  
Sherlock huffs. "Well, that's hardly helpful, is it?" He looks John in the eye. "Should we kiss? Is that normal in these situations?"  
  
John doesn't mean to laugh but he can't help it. "When are you ever normal, Sherlock? Seriously, you only need to kiss me if you feel like..."  
  
"Oh, for crying out loud," mutters Sherlock, and surges forward, pressing his lips to John's before John can say anything else.  
  
John inhales sharply. Sherlock's lips are dry and warm, and John's never kissed another man before, but then Sherlock's pulling away again.  
  
"There." Sherlock raises his eyebrows. His cheeks have more colour in them than John's seen before. "Good?"  
  
John laughs, still a little bewildered. "Ok," he says, looking Sherlock in the eye. "Good."  
  
Sherlock smirks, appearing rather pleased with himself, so John leans over and kisses him again. It's only a brief, chaste thing, and John is going to need time to get used to this, but not tonight. God knows what time it is in the morning. John's been so wired for the last half hour that he can feel it draining out of him at an alarming rate, exhaustion seeping in in its wake.  
  
He sits back, unable to stifle a smile. Sherlock cares for him. Never in a million years did John think this would happen. "I need to go to bed, Sherlock," he says, scrubbing a palm over his forehead and trying to control himself. "I'm absolutely knackered."  
  
"Fair enough," says Sherlock, watching him with an odd expression.  
  
John stands. "You should get some rest too, if you know what's good for you."  
  
Sherlock heaves a put-upon sigh.  
  
"Should I take that as a no?" asks John.  
  
But Sherlock doesn't even answer that one. He just throws himself down onto the freshly-vacated sofa and steeples his fingers beneath his chin. After a moment, he says, "Goodnight, John."  
  
John gives a wry smile. "Goodnight."  
  
***  
  
It's far too early the next day when John's woken up by Sherlock bursting in through his bedroom door and turning on the lights.  
  
"Wake up, John! Our list of suspects is ready."  
  
"Jesus." John covers his face with his hands to block out the brightness. "What time is it? God. I feel like I've only slept for a few hours."  
  
"That's because you have," says Sherlock. "It's 10:30 am. Come on, we need to get going."  
  
With a groan, John sits up as Sherlock clatters down the stairs.  
  
***  
  
When John's ready, they take the files for the previous two murder cases and Carrie Hackett's laptop with them and hail a taxi.  
  
There's hardly been time for them to acknowledge their conversation from the night before in their rush to get out the door, but there's still something easy between them now that had been lacking yesterday. It feels almost as if they've gone back to how they were before all this started: comfortable.  
  
Sherlock gives John an indulgent smile as John climbs into the taxi with one of the files, and John finds himself smiling in return.  
  
"Scotland Yard," says Sherlock to the cabbie, once John's settled.  
  
"So," John rubs at the bridge of his nose as the taxi pulls away from the curb, "did you manage to get anything productive done last night?"  
  
"A little." Sherlock turns and looks out of the window, a small smile lingering on his lips. "I was able to find out a bit more about our murderer. Nothing that would help us find him on its own, of course, but when we've already got a list of suspects..."  
  
John looks at him. "Go on then. What have you got?"  
  
Sherlock turns to watch a cyclist go past. "He lives in London now but was originally from Newcastle. He also works night-shifts, speaks a bit of French and has some sort of food allergy, mostly likely peanuts. Not much to go on, admittedly, but he's very careful not to give much away."  
  
Not much? John scoffs. What's not much to Sherlock is amazing to everyone else. "You're making this up."  
  
Sherlock sniffs. "You know I never make things up, John."  
  
John smirks at him. "Are you going to tell me how you worked it out, then?"  
  
But Sherlock just flashes him a sly smile and says nothing else.  
  
***  
  
When they arrive at Scotland Yard, it looks as if Lestrade has been up for most of the night too. He comes out of his office and dumps what appear to be a good few reams of paper into Sherlock's arms.  
  
"Do you know how much trouble it was to get all this information?" Lestrade says. "You'd better be onto something, Sherlock."  
  
"I am." Sherlock flips through the top few pieces of paper, trying to juggle one of the files and the laptop as well. "Do you have anything else for me?" He looks up at Lestrade. "DNA tests? IP addresses? CCTV footage? Oyster card log?"  
  
"Forensics are still working on most of it." Lestrade scrubs at his chin. "We ran the check on her Oyster card though. Looks like she hadn't used any public transport since she came back from work that evening."  
  
Sherlock hums, closing his eyes briefly. "He did have a car, then. Although the fact that she took her card with her suggests that she was expecting to take public transport. Either she didn't know he had a car or he'd hired one specifically for the occasion." He looks at Lestrade. "Compare her Oyster card log to the dates of their email conversations; see if you can find out where they met previously." Sherlock hefts the pile of paper in his arms. "I'll need a desk."  
  
"Ok." Lestrade's turned to head back into his office, yawning. "You can use the meeting room at the end of the corridor." He gestures vaguely in the right direction. "Just, make it count, Sherlock, ok? Those records were hell to get hold of."  
  
But Sherlock doesn't reply; he's already off striding away.  
  
***  
  
The meeting room is a bland one, with a large table in the middle, some chairs and a flipchart. There aren't even any windows. Still, John supposes that they're not here to look at the scenery anyway. Sherlock's already getting settled, taking off his coat, moving the flipchart out of the way and spreading his things out over the table.  
  
John shuts the door behind him to block out some of the noise from the office and puts his file down.  
  
Without ceremony, half of Lestrade's wad of paper is dumped on the table in front of John. Sherlock waves a hand at him. "It's quicker if we split the work, John. You already know what we're looking for: a man, five foot five, with a food allergy and an injury that looks like it could come from a fight."  
  
John looks at the pile of paper with trepidation. "And that's going to whittle it down, is it?"  
  
"Yes." Sherlock sits down and gives John such an enthusiastic grin that John can't help but grin in return.  
  
Smiling to himself, John looks down at the pile of paper in front of him. It seems as if it's made up of truncated medical files, with details of the patients' contact information, general health, and a description of their latest injuries. He picks up the first page to be confronted with the file for an 80 year-old woman who'd broken her wrist in a fall.  
  
This, he thinks, might not be so hard after all.  
  
***  
  
Two hours later and John's beginning to think this task will never end. All the patients' details have started to blur into one confusing mass of addresses and injured limbs.  
  
He sighs and puts the next medical file back on the top of his pile. A glance over at Sherlock suggests that he's having no such problems; he seems utterly absorbed in the files in front of him, quickly scanning through each piece of paper and filtering it out into one of two piles in front of him.  
  
The surge of pride that rushes over John at the sight is sudden and leaves him smiling. God. He's in love with Sherlock and Sherlock's ok with it. More than ok, even; Sherlock's willing to reciprocate.  
  
For a moment, John's so happy he doesn't know what to do with himself.  
  
He sighs again, trying to force himself to focus. It doesn't work. Resignedly, he realises that he's not going to get any more work done without a break, so he stands.  
  
"I'm going to get a cup of tea," he says to Sherlock. "Do you want one?"  
  
"Yes. Fine." Sherlock's too busy sorting through his files to even look up.  
  
With an amused smile, John puts on his jacket and wanders out in search sustenance.  
  
***  
  
John returns, a quarter of an hour later, with two cups of tea and a couple of packets of sandwiches.  
  
"I got some sandwiches too." John sets a pack down in front of Sherlock along with one of the cups of tea. "Thought you might be hungry."  
  
There's no reply to that, so John sits down and opens his own sandwiches, noticing that while he was away Sherlock has stolen a large wodge from John's pile of paper and is now scanning through the extra files.  
  
John takes a sip of tea, the first caffeine he's had since he woke up this morning, and takes the time to wonder where he and Sherlock go from here.  
  
They kissed last night, albeit briefly, and it was ok. Kind of like kissing a woman, really, although John will probably need some time to get used to it. But after that... Do they move on to the bedroom? It's the logical progression, John supposes, but the thought of having sex with Sherlock is an odd one. They've known each other for so long; it'd be weird.  
  
Well. John shrugs. He supposes they can work it out when they get there. He's not had sex with a man before, but he knows where all the bits and pieces are supposed to go. What's more important is that he's currently procrastinating from picking up those medical files again. Not good. He may at least _try_ to look as if he's paying attention.  
  
John takes another sip of tea. "Go on, then," he says to Sherlock. "How did you do it?"  
  
"Do what?" Sherlock dumps a sheet of paper onto one of his two piles and picks up the next page in front of him.  
  
"Why are we looking for someone with a food allergy?" John waves a hand. "And all the other stuff."  
  
Sherlock looks up then. He frowns briefly, and must decide that he can spare the time because he sits back and gives John a smile. "Any guesses?"  
  
"No," says John. "I'm not the one who stayed up all night going through the files on the previous two murders, am I?"  
  
Sherlock shrugs. He takes a sip of his tea, ignoring his sandwiches completely, and reaches for the case file on the murder of Helen Whitman. Flipping it open to a page of email correspondence, Sherlock points to a paragraph. "There."  
  
John leans over and reads it:  
  
 _Feeling better 2day? Didn't realise u werent supposed to have any. U shd have said._  
  
John scans up the page a little. "This was sent by the murder victim."  
  
"Yes," says Sherlock. "Quite clear that he's allergic to something and the wording suggests it was something he'd eaten. It could be anything of course, but an allergy to peanuts is the most common."  
  
"That makes sense," agrees John. "What about the other bits, then?"  
  
Sherlock flashes him a grin and flips through the file. "We can tell that he works night shifts because some of the emails he sends are at very odd times in the night. He could be an insomniac, but I doubt that insomniacs are affected, consistently, one week in every four." Sherlock then turns and flips through the other file as well. "The pattern continues through all three cases, even the most recent one, which suggests that he's been in the same job for the past six years."  
  
John nods. It sounds so simple when Sherlock explains it, but God knows how long it would take for a normal person to notice the times the emails were sent and work out a pattern.  
  
"And then there's the French." Sherlock stops at one page and points to an email written by the victim. It's signed: _Bonne nuit. Shamila xxx_. "I didn't pick up on it before," says Sherlock. "She uses a few more French phrases in other emails but they're all very basic. He never replied in French so I assumed that she was learning the language, badly, or showing off to sound more exotic. But then..." Sherlock turns to the laptop, brings up Carrie Hackett's email account, and clicks through until he finds the email he wants. He turns the screen to John. It reads: _Loved last night, mon cher._  
  
"Not the only time she uses it either," says Sherlock. "One person using French and it can pass off as an affectation; two people using it and there must be a reason. It's likely that he's spoken some French to them in person, causing them to reciprocate in their emails."  
  
"Really?" asks John. "But French is supposed to be romantic. Can't that be why they're using it?"  
  
Sherlock scoffs. "Statistically unlikely. Far more likely that our murderer can speak the language, at least a little."  
  
"Maybe," says John.  
  
Sherlock deliberately ignores him. "And he's from Newcastle too. How do we know that? Well." He turns back to one of the files and flips through it some more. "That was just a case of recognising the Geordie accent. Yes, he's careful not to let it out in his emails, but he slips up here and there." Sherlock stops and points to an email on the page. "The use of _them_ instead of _those_." He skips to another email. "The use of _give_ instead of _gave_." He flicks through the whole file. "And a number of others on occasion: _us_ for _me_ ; _so as_ for _so that_ ; _is_ for _are_." Sherlock tosses the file to one side and clicks through to another email on the laptop. He turns the screen to John proudly. "Then there's the one time when he forgets himself completely: _I understand. I know it's not easy being a mam._ "  
  
John looks at him.  
  
"Could be anywhere in the North East really," says Sherlock, smirking, "but Newcastle contains the majority of the population so it's a likely candidate."  
  
That's amazing. "You," says John. "You can tell someone's accent from their emails?"  
  
Sherlock frowns at him. "Why? Can't you?"  
  
"No." John shakes his head. "I don't think I could."  
  
Sherlock scoffs. "You're underselling yourself, John." Then he takes another sip of his tea and, apparently, their conversation is over, because he turns back to his pile of patient records without another word.  
  
***  
  
It's another couple of hours before they're done. John almost groans in relief when he finally sets down his last piece of paper.  
  
As soon as he does so, Sherlock reaches across and picks up the pile of suspects that John has picked out.  
  
"Yes. Yes. No." Sherlock tosses the medical files into his own piles on the table. "Yes. No. Seriously, John, were you even paying attention with this one?"  
  
John shrugs.  
  
It doesn't take long. Finally, they have a pile of candidates that's made up of only eight names in total.  
  
Sherlock looks rather proud of himself. He shrugs his suit jacket off onto the back of his chair, then stands and snatches up the eight medical files from the table. "Come on, John. We need to go pay our suspects a visit."  
  
"Oh. Right." John gets up, collecting his coat from the back of his chair. "Are we going to ask Lestrade to...?"  
  
Sherlock snorts, on his way to the door. "No, no. Lestrade is just going to be boring. I don't think he needs to have a hand in this." He stops and looks at John. "What are you doing? Don't put your coat on. Leave it here; you won't need it."  
  
"What?" Confused, John puts his coat back down. "But isn't it cold out?"  
  
Sherlock says nothing; he's already off, striding out into the main office and taking a clipboard from one of the desks as he passes.  
  
***  
  
They head out of the building and down the road, Sherlock clipping the medical files to the clipboard as he goes.  
  
John was right, it _is_ cold outside. Surely Sherlock must be feeling it worse in only his shirt like that, but he doesn't appear to notice. John has no idea what Sherlock's planning until they turn the corner, cross the road, and find themselves in a department store.  
  
"Good place to get a disguise," says Sherlock briskly as he strides ahead toward the men's clothing section. "People these days don't open their doors to just anybody. Shame, really."  
  
"Disguise?" John looks around them as he hurries after Sherlock. "I hate to break it to you, Sherlock, but I doubt this is the sort of place that will sell you a fake moustache."  
  
Sherlock throws him a wry smile over his shoulder, then stops beside a railing full of jackets. "Ah. Yes. These are perfect."  
  
***  
  
Twenty-five minutes later and John and Sherlock are wearing matching, cheap, waterproof jackets and sitting in a taxi that's pulling up to the kerb somewhere not too far from Oval tube station.  
  
Sherlock pays the cabbie and sniffs as he steps out onto a street full of terraced houses that look like they've seen better days. He checks his clipboard. "First port of call: Laurence Hammond, 49, apparently broke his wrist slipping in the bath."  
  
"Right." John shuts the taxi door behind him and peers over Sherlock's shoulder to get a glimpse of the medical file. He rolls his shoulders in an attempt to make the jacket more comfortable. "Want to explain our amazing disguise to me before we get stuck in, then?"  
  
"I suppose I should." Sherlock turns and gives John's jacket an appraising glance. "We need to look like we're going from door to door, so we need something that's good for the weather. Matching jackets and people will make the assumption that it's some sort of company uniform." He rummages in his trouser pocket with a small smile and pulls out a card. "This helps too, of course."  
  
John takes it from him, intrigued. He finds that it's an ID card for EDF Energy that has Sherlock's face on it beside the name, Rob Taylor. John turns it over in his hands and tries not to grin too widely. "Trust you to... How long have you had this?" He looks at Sherlock. "Let me guess: it's not the only fake ID you have either."  
  
"Of course not." Sherlock tosses his head as he retrieves the card from John and puts it back in his pocket. "I suppose I should really get some made for you as well, but we'll make do with one for now." He shrugs. "No-one ever checks these things properly anyway. Everybody's happy to let the man in to read the electricity meter."  
  
John laughs as their eyes meet. "You are fantastic, you know that?"  
  
Sherlock smiles in a pleased sort of a way, and turns to cross the road, stepping up to a house and ringing the doorbell.  
  
John follows and goes to stand beside Sherlock on the doorstep. While they wait for the door to open, John attempts to get more into character. He may not be as good at this as Sherlock, but he can at least try to look like someone who works for an electricity company.  
  
After a minute of waiting, still no-one has come to the door, so Sherlock rings the doorbell again. Finally, there's the sound of movement in the hall and then the front door opens to reveal a slightly scruffy-looking man in a grey tracksuit with a plaster cast on his arm. "Yes?" he says.  
  
Sherlock straightens and hefts the clipboard in his arms. "Hi," he says brightly, "have you considered letting Jesus into your life?"  
  
The man's face falls. "Er, no thanks, mate." And the front door shuts again.  
  
John tries not to laugh where the man can probably still hear them. He walks back out into the middle of the road, stifling a snigger. "Well," he turns to Sherlock with a grin, "that wasn't very successful, was it? What happened to the great disguise?"  
  
Sherlock sneers. "Oh, I couldn't be bothered with all that so I just used the easiest way I knew to make him go away again."  
  
"What?" John doesn't understand that. "But don't you..."  
  
"He's not our killer, John."  
  
"He's..." John pauses. "He's not? Right." He clears his throat. "And you could tell just from that?"  
  
"Easily," says Sherlock, tapping his fingers on the clipboard. "Obviously, he doesn't have the Geordie accent, but we can't dismiss him on that alone. While there's no reason to suspect that our murderer realises we know he's from Newcastle, he may nevertheless put on a different persona when opening the door just in case. No," Sherlock looks back over to the door, "we can't go by just that. What we can go by, though, is the fact that he's got three day-old stubble on his chin. If anyone were getting ready for a date, as he and Carrie Hackett were supposedly doing before he killed her, he would have made sure he was clean-shaven. Well, either that or he would have let his stubble grow out long enough for it to be fashionable. As it was, this man would only have had one day's worth of growth on the night of Carrie Hackett's murder, which is scruffy by anyone's standards, and certainly not the sort of look our murderer would have wanted to go for if he didn't want to raise his victim's suspicions as soon as she saw him."  
  
"His stubble?" asks John, bewildered. "You got that from..."  
  
"Plus, we know that the murderer had a car. This man hasn't driven in years. Has possibly never driven at all."  
  
John opens his mouth to ask, but Sherlock just carries on.  
  
"Look around, John. He's home but there's no car parked outside his flat. Fine, he might have rented one, but it would have been impossible for him to drive it." Sherlock glances at John. "Did you see his hands? Anyone who drives has that fact written all over their hands; slight roughness where the fingers meet the palm from the steering wheel, more so on the left than the right due to the use of the gear-stick and the handbrake." Sherlock sniffs. "There were none of those marks on this man's hands. There _was_ considerable dirt underneath the fingernails though, and food stains on his jacket, beer stains on his trousers, grease in his hair. This is a man who stays at home and only bothers to go outside when he has to go to the hospital. No need for personal hygiene." Sherlock smirks. "Hardly surprising that he injured himself in the bath; he'd probably forgotten how they worked."  
  
John grins. "Not our man, then?"  
  
"Not our man," agrees Sherlock, and he heads out onto the main road to hail a taxi.  
  
***  
  
They check out two more suspects after that. For the first, Sherlock uses his Jesus line again. "It wasn't him, John. He's never worked night shifts in his life." For the second, they actually make their way into the man's flat on the pretense of reading his electricity meter when Sherlock stops abruptly in the hallway.  
  
"You live in Edinburgh," says Sherlock.  
  
Their man sounds shocked. "Er, yes? How did you..."  
  
"You're only here for a month on business and you've certainly never lived in London before."  
  
"What?" asks the man. "What are you...?"  
  
"Hardly enough time to have an affair with three women," mutters Sherlock. He turns and gives the man an insincere smile. "Sorry about that; I think we've got the wrong flat."  
  
"You mean..."  
  
"Is this building Milton House?" Sherlock checks his clipboard. "We're meant to go to Milton House."  
  
"Why did you...?" The man frowns at him. "I've never even heard of Milton House."  
  
"There's been a mistake. My fault." Sherlock's already striding out of the front door. "Come on, John!"  
  
***  
  
The next place they take a taxi to is a grey block of flats about ten minutes' drive from Brixton station. The whole place has a drab, 1960s look to it in the fading light.  
  
"Pete Marshall. Flat 20," says Sherlock, consulting his clipboard as the taxi drives away.  
  
John heads over to the main door to the building. He assumes that Sherlock's following him, but when he reaches the door, he turns to see Sherlock disappearing around the back of the building instead. Frowning, John goes after him.  
  
Down a small side-road, Sherlock appears to have found the residents' car park. "Each flat given its own allocated parking place," mutters Sherlock, striding along and looking at the numbers painted on the bays. "Very handy." And he stops in front of an empty bay marked '20'.  
  
John watches as Sherlock crouches down to inspect the tarmac. An empty parking space can only mean one of two things. "Either he's out or he doesn't have a car," says John.  
  
"Possibly neither," says Sherlock, taking a photograph of the tarmac with his phone.  
  
"What?" begins John.  
  
"Look." Sherlock stands and gestures at the edges of the bay. "Do you see? It's slightly muddy around the sides; doesn't get much sun here to dry up any puddles." He holds out his phone to John. "And in the mud are tyre prints."  
  
John looks at the photo. The prints are certainly unmistakable when seen up close. "So he does have a car then," says John, glancing at Sherlock.  
  
"Either that or he's had one here recently." Sherlock grins as he pockets his phone. "Shall we go see if he's home?"  
  
They head back around to the front door to the building. Sherlock hefts his clipboard in his arms and presses the button on the intercom marked '20'.  
  
After a moment, the intercom crackles and a man's voice says, "Yes?"  
  
"Hiya," says Sherlock brightly. "Is that Pete Marshall? We're here to read your electricity meter."  
  
There follow a few seconds of silence, and then the voice says, "Ok. Come up."  
  
John holds his breath. There's no doubting it: the voice has a distinctly Geordie accent. John looks to Sherlock, who gives him a knowing smile in return.  
  
***  
  
Flat 20 is on the fourth floor. John's not as fit as he used to be and he's almost out of breath by the time they make it up the stairs to the door. Sherlock watches him and waits. It's only when John gives a nod to say he's recovered that Sherlock turns and rings the doorbell.  
  
A few seconds later, the door is opened by a man in his mid-forties with his arm in a sling; presumably this is Pete Marshall. He's wearing jeans and a green jumper, and looks quite normal by all respects.  
  
"Hiya, mate," says Sherlock. He flashes the ID card and peers into the hall. "We're here to look at your meter. Shouldn't take long."  
  
"It's in the kitchen." Marshall holds the door open for them, his accent even more noticeable now they're face to face. "Down at the end of the hall and turn..."  
  
"Nah, you're alright; I can find it." Sherlock sweeps down the hall. "Most of these flats are built the same, anyway."  
  
John follows Sherlock into a small kitchen containing white walls and Ikea furniture. The meter is placed high on one wall and Sherlock pulls up a chair from the kitchen table to stand on.  
  
"Don't mind if I use a chair, do you?" Sherlock asks their host, who's followed them into the kitchen.  
  
"Go ahead," says Marshall amiably.  
  
Sherlock positions the chair in front of the wall and turns to nod at the sling. "You look like you've been in the wars."  
  
"Oh." Marshall looks at his arm. "We was moving boxes in the office. One of them was heavier than I expected." He gives a wry smile. "Nothing glamorous, I'm afraid."  
  
"Work nights, do you?" asks Sherlock.  
  
"I..." Marshall frowns briefly. "Yeah, sometimes. I'm a security guard up in the City. But I didn't..."  
  
"Thought so." Sherlock grins at him. "My sister-in-law works nights at an old-folk's home. You look as tired as she does."  
  
"Probably the arm stopping me from sleeping, more than anything," says Marshall. "I haven't worked nights for a couple of weeks now."  
  
"No, you haven't," agrees Sherlock. He stands on the chair and peers at the meter, then checks the clipboard in his arms. "Do you have a torch, mate? They put these things in places where I can't see a thing."  
  
"Yeah," says Marshall, "hold on," and he heads out into the hallway.  
  
As soon as he's gone, Sherlock jumps down from the chair, throwing his clipboard onto the kitchen table. "John, call Lestrade. Get him here, now."  
  
"Right." John pulls his phone out of his pocket. "This is our man, then?"  
  
"Definitely," says Sherlock. "The night shifts, the accent, the car." He opens a cupboard, then the fridge. "Oh, soya milk. Lactose intolerant rather than peanuts. Well, I can't have everything." And he turns to inspect the rest of the kitchen as John makes the call.  
  
Pete Marshall returns with a torch just as John's hanging up.  
  
"Er," John gives him a tight smile, "just had to phone head office."  
  
"Where's your car?" asks Sherlock, from where he's going through a kitchen drawer.  
  
Marshall frowns. "What?"  
  
"Your car," says Sherlock. "It's not in your parking space."  
  
"I don't have a car." Marshall watches Sherlock rummage through the drawer and clenches his jaw. "Look, I don't know what yous think you're doing, but I think you should..."  
  
"Well, you must have a car," Sherlock gestures to a row of hooks on the wall, "because there are scratch-marks on the paint here from where you've hung your car keys. A Vauxhall by the looks of it."  
  
"I told you, I don't have a car." Marshall puts down the torch and walks further into the room. "Will yous leave?"  
  
"Must have hired one, then." Sherlock straightens. "It's clear that you had a car here at some point in the last week from the marks on the wall and the tyre prints in your parking place, and it'll be easy enough to identify the car from those alone. Not to mention that it will hardly take long to work out which car hire company you used." Sherlock looks him in the eye. "Did you clean the car to get rid of the evidence of Carrie Hackett's presence before you returned it, or did you just dump it without returning it at all? If we search the CCTV footage along the South Bank of the river for a Vauxhall Astra on the night of the murder, I'm sure we'll find what we're looking for."  
  
Marshall has turned pale.  
  
"Is there anything else we should check?" asks Sherlock, gesturing at the rest of the kitchen. "We could go have a look at those books in French that you doubtless have on your bookshelf to confirm just how well you match our profile, or we could take your shoes and your clothes back to the lab to see what you've left on them." Sherlock takes a step forwards. "Maybe I should just let my good doctor here take a look at your arm to confirm that it wasn't injured by lifting heavy boxes but by a woman struggling for her life instea..."  
  
Marshall surges forwards, wild-eyed. John collides with him before he reaches Sherlock, but it's only once John's pinned Marshall back to the worktop that he sees the glint of a knife in Marshall's hand. For a heartbeat, John's stomach drops, but then Sherlock's beside John, one hand on Marshall's wrist, the other peeling the knife from his fingers.  
  
Sherlock's eyes flash. "Good job you've already injured your good hand, isn't it?"  
  
Then Marshall kicks out at John's shins, struggles, and the three of them drop to the kitchen floor, John and Sherlock panting to restrain their suspect, and Marshall gasping like a dying man beneath them, his face crimson with exertion as he tries to throw them off.  
  
It's then that sirens sound in the distance, and John's only too glad to hear them.  
  
***  
  
God. They spend the next few hours at Scotland Yard, giving statements, being chastised by Lestrade, and collecting the coats they'd left behind earlier. John is tired, but he's also elated at their success. Pete Marshall has been charged with serial murder and the forensic teams have been sent out to scour his flat.  
  
When they finally leave Scotland Yard, they head to a Turkish restaurant down the road and get seated near the window. A candle is placed on their table, which is par for the course by now but, for the first time, is actually appropriate.  
  
Trying not to grin too much, John puts his elbows on the table and looks Sherlock in the eye. "You did it on purpose, didn't you."  
  
Sherlock pretends to look confused as he hands the waiter their menus. "Did what on purpose?"  
  
"Goaded Marshall into attacking you in his kitchen," says John. "You knew it was him but you knew Lestrade wouldn't believe you without proof."  
  
"I already had enough proof." Sherlock takes a piece of bread from a basket as it's put on the table in front of them. "But the police force can be annoyingly dim when it comes to seeing the links in a train of logic." He smirks. "Attacking me when I accused him of murder is almost as good as a confession; it's blunt enough that even the police can't ignore it."  
  
"Dangerous though." John takes some bread too. "You could have been hurt."  
  
"I know." Sherlock grins at him. "Fun, wasn't it?"  
  
John meets his eyes and is utterly unable to lie. "Yes," he says. "Yes it was."  
  
The rest of the meal passes in a haze of laughter and high spirits. John feels like he's walking on air for most of it. Seriously. How long had he protested that he wasn't gay and that they weren't a couple? Ridiculous, all of it. Sherlock has had a person charged with serial murder after only being on the case for a day and a half; he is a brilliant brilliant man, and John loves him for it.  
  
So, yes, if John stops and thinks about it, then maybe the idea of having a relationship with Sherlock, of kissing him and having sex with him, is a little weird. But that's surely just John's inexperience making him anxious. They'll work it out when the time comes. Because right now, there's no-one John loves more than this man. And maybe, just maybe, thinks John, the time to push those boundaries could come quite soon indeed.  
  
***  
  
It's late in the evening when they tumble into the flat, exhausted and buzzing. John takes off his jacket and kicks off his shoes. He'd spent their cab ride home watching Sherlock's profile and wondering if he should make a move tonight. The thought of taking things further is still a little strange but John finds that he's already made his decision without realising it.  
  
He's determined to do this.  
  
It's just when John's about to step over to where Sherlock's taking off his coat and ask if he can kiss him again that Sherlock says, "Let's have sex."  
  
John stops in the middle of the room. "You...?"  
  
"That's what you do in a relationship, isn't it?" asks Sherlock, hanging his coat up on the door. "We can use my bedroom; it's closer."  
  
"Oh. Right," says John. "Wow." Either they're on the same wavelength with this or Sherlock's been predicting John's thoughts again, which is never not disconcerting.  
  
Sherlock turns to him, brows quirking in a frown. "Don't you want to? I thought..."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous." John laughs awkwardly. "Of course I want to." He steps over and kisses Sherlock without asking. "Didn't really expect you to instigate it, that's all."  
  
"Why not?" Sherlock turns on his heel, already heading towards his bedroom. "Come on."  
  
Things are certainly going quicker than John had expected. "Well," he says, following Sherlock, "I didn't think you were very experienced."  
  
"I'm not experienced," says Sherlock, striding into his bedroom. He shuts the door behind them once John's followed him inside. "I know the theory, of course, but you'll have to correct me if I misjudge the technique."  
  
John smiles, but he's a little mystified by Sherlock's impatience. Sherlock's already sat on the bed to take off his shoes.  
  
"Is this all we're getting to set the mood?" asks John.  
  
Sherlock looks at him as John sits beside him on the bed.  
  
"Normally it's nice to make things a bit more romantic before jumping straight into it," reasons John.  
  
"Romantic?" Sherlock pulls off his final shoe and tosses it to one side. "John, we've just solved three murders. How much more romantic do you need?"  
  
John lets out a bark of laughter at that. God help them, it's true. Sherlock chuckles too, and some of the tension in the air diffuses a little.  
  
"Come on." John tries to control himself. He turns to face Sherlock, and tucks a knee up under himself. "Come on, then. Kiss me again."  
  
So Sherlock does. He leans forward, eyes fluttering closed as their lips meet and it's...  
  
Well. It's ok, John supposes. Sherlock pulls away briefly then kisses him again, but just like before, John can't quite get over the fact that it's Sherlock that he's kissing and how strange that is. John doesn't allow himself to stop and think about it though. He opens the kiss up instead, pressing his tongue past Sherlock's lips, and Sherlock seems happy to go along with it, following John's lead.  
  
It's warm and slick, now, and John tries to get into it more, his breath stuttering as Sherlock's hand runs over his own.  
  
God. It's... It's nice. Isn't it?  
  
Is it nice?  
  
For some reason, John's suddenly not so sure.  
  
He pulls back.  
  
Sherlock sits back too, his lips red and parted, slightly breathless. For a moment, he stares at John, then he runs a hand through his hair and shrugs off his jacket, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his shirtsleeves.  
  
John supposes he should find the sight enticing.  
  
Shouldn't he?  
  
Taking a breath, John decides change track and get the nitty-gritty out of the way before they really get down to business. "How are you for protection?" he asks.  
  
"Protection?" Sherlock finishes rolling up his final sleeve and gives John a confused look.  
  
"Condoms," clarifies John. "I'm assuming that means you don't have any?"  
  
Sherlock frowns some more. "Why would I have any?"  
  
"No," says John. "Why would you?" He stands and tries to give Sherlock a smile. "It's ok. I have some in my room."  
  
The trip up the stairs is a strange one. Despite the situation, John can't help but feel...  
  
Entering his bedroom, he heads over to his chest of drawers and pulls out his packet of condoms. But instead of going straight back out, John finds himself standing there, staring down at them.  
  
And like that, he comes to a realisation. There's no point in pretending to himself, is there?  
  
It's obvious that he doesn't want to do this. Not tonight.  
  
Wearily, John trudges empty-handed back down to Sherlock's room, feeling disappointed and a more than a little idiotic.  
  
Sherlock's sitting cross-legged on his bed. He looks up from his phone as John enters. "Got them?"  
  
John purses his lips and sits on the bed. He clasps his hands in his lap. "Sherlock," he says, taking a deep breath, "are you into this? Tonight?"  
  
Sherlock looks at him and pockets his phone. "Truthfully?" he asks, screwing up his face. "No."  
  
"No," echoes John, "me neither." He tries to give Sherlock an apologetic smile. "Look. It's late, and we've had a long day, and, if I'm honest, it's going to take me a bit more of a while to get used to this...This." He waves a hand between them. "Do you think we should call it a night?"  
  
Sherlock's expression is neutral. "If you like," he says.  
  
"Right." John stands, clenching his hands at his sides. "Right." And then he heads back upstairs to his room, feeling more awkward than ever.  
  
***  
  
That night, John has a very disturbed night's sleep.  
  
He lies there, thinking about the events of the past two days; of missing persons and bodies and confessions and kissing until it all becomes a confused jumble in his mind. And the more he thinks about it the less it makes sense.  
  
John sighs. He had thought that he was in love with Sherlock; had been certain of it only a few hours ago. But there's no getting past the evidence.  
  
It wasn't just tonight, was it? Not really. And it wasn't just uncertainty and inexperience and nerves either.  
  
Lying there, thinking about it, John's certain: he doesn't want to have sex with Sherlock. He isn't even sure he enjoys kissing him all that much, to be honest.  
  
God.  
  
It can only mean one thing. John's really not gay, is he? He's just a fool. A massive idiot  
  
Had he honestly thought...? Seriously, he's been far more lonely than he ever realised these past three years. John Watson: a man so broken that he can't even recognise friendship anymore without mistaking it for romance.  
  
Sherlock Holmes is John's best friend; of course he is. But John's not in love with him. He never has been.  
  
Something aches at the back of John's throat and he doesn't know if it's disappointment or shame.  
  
***  
  
The next morning, John comes downstairs to find that Sherlock's already dressed and is sitting on the sofa with his laptop and a cup of coffee.  
  
"Morning," says Sherlock, not looking up from the screen.  
  
John tries not to feel awkward and fails. "Good morning." He considers going into the kitchen to make himself his own coffee, but decides that he should probably just cut to the chase.  
  
"Sherlock," John perches on the arm on the other end of the sofa, "about last night."  
  
"Mm?" Sherlock finishes typing a sentence and looks up. "Do you want to have sex now? I _have_ just showered."  
  
"No," says John. He shakes his head. "No, I..." He stares at the floor and clears his throat. "I don't really want to, actually. Or. Well. I don't ever want to."  
  
"Oh," says Sherlock. He sniffs. "Well, that makes things a lot easier."  
  
John frowns and looks up. "What?"  
  
Sherlock gives him a brief smile. "I don't really want to have sex with you either." He waves a hand and starts typing again. "I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not, so I decided to give it a go last night. It turns out I didn't."  
  
"Oh," says John, actually less surprised than he should have been. "Right then. So we _are_ just friends." He coughs and gets up to make that coffee. "I suppose it's good to have it confirmed."  
  
"John?" After a moment, Sherlock follows him into the kitchen. "John, of course we're friends. Good friends. I've told you that before."  
  
"Yes." John puts the kettle down and turns round to face him. "But I mean _just_ friends, Sherlock. Only friends and nothing more." He sighs at the confused look on Sherlock's face and picks up the kettle again to go fill it from the tap. "Look, Sherlock, I have to apologise. I was so happy to see you alive that I mistakenly thought..."  
  
"Don't tell me you're not in love with me!" Sherlock says it so loudly that John nearly drops the kettle in the sink.  
  
"What...?" starts John, turning around.  
  
Sherlock grabs him by the sleeve and looks him in the eye. "Don't try to convince yourself that you don't love me. It's not true and we both know it."  
  
John tries to shake him off. "Sherlock. You..."  
  
"I may have been blinded by my own emotions at first but now I know to look for it, it's as clear as day." Sherlock's eyes are sharp. "Whenever I'm near, your pulse races, pupils dilate, hair follicles stand on end; classic adrenaline response. You smile more when you talk to me than with anyone else; laugh more too. Your skin flushes when I get close enough. Did you know, John, that you look at me, on average, once every 45 seconds, even when we're not interacting with each other at all?" Sherlock leans back and scoffs. "Of course you're in love with me. It's written all over you!"  
  
"I..." John falters, clutching at the kettle. None of it makes any sense. "But I don't want to sleep with you," he protests.  
  
"God. Does it matter?" Sherlock snorts, releasing John's arm. "I don't want to sleep with you either, but I'm still in love with you."  
  
And the sudden warmth that courses through John's chest at those words is very hard to mistake. He stares at Sherlock, a giddiness rising inside of him. God, this doesn't really make any sense. "So you're saying I do love you." John turns and puts the kettle back on its base. He stares at it. "Do I?"  
  
Behind him, Sherlock huffs. "You heard what I said, John."  
  
John sniggers against his will, and thinks that, actually, maybe he could be all right with this. After all, when is Sherlock Holmes ever wrong?  
  
He turns back to Sherlock. "But if I love you and you love me, and we don't want to have sex with each other, what does that make us? It's not exactly normal, is it?"  
  
Sherlock snorts. "Since when do we care about normal, John? If you cared about that, you would have moved out as soon as you saw the first dead body."  
  
John tries not to grin at that. "Well," he says, "I do like a bit of excitement in my life."  
  
Sherlock returns it with a smile of his own. He brushes a hand over John's wrist and heads back out into the living room. "Want any excitement today?" he asks over his shoulder. "I've had an email this morning from an acquaintance of mine. He's got a friend who's lost a prize-winning greyhound by the name of Silver Blaze. Thinks it might be gang related."  
  
"Oh," says John, following Sherlock out of the kitchen. "Is it?"  
  
"Not likely." Sherlock turns and gives John a wry smile. "But we won't know until we have all the facts." He picks up his scarf. "Fancy a trip to Birmingham?"  
  
John grins at him. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I think I do."  
  
***  
  
A few minutes later and they're out of the house and on the street. John expects Sherlock to hail a taxi, but Sherlock just turns and starts walking along the pavement instead.  
  
Confused, John stares after him.  
  
"Come on, John," calls Sherlock over his shoulder. "We're getting a train from Marylebone."  
  
"Oh. Right." John hurries up to Sherlock's side, feeling rather upbeat. It's not far to the station at all, and the weather's nice enough for the walk. John considers for a moment, then decides that he doesn't care if they're in public or not. He loves this man and that's all that matters. Reaching out, John catches Sherlock's hand in his own.  
  
Sherlock's stride falters for a brief second. He turns and gives John a smile, eyes flashing. Then he picks up his pace, walking fast enough that he's almost dragging John along behind him.  
  
"Hold on," protests John, hurrying along. "Sherlock!  
  
"Keep up, John," says Sherlock brightly. "We've got a train to catch."


End file.
